


in our bedroom, after the war

by abigaillecters, ohwhatagloomyshow



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Marriage, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:38:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigaillecters/pseuds/abigaillecters, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwhatagloomyshow/pseuds/ohwhatagloomyshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t want any help because I don’t need it!” His voice is muffled a little by his palms, but the harsh intent is completely clear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in our bedroom, after the war

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know that there is another max/liesel fic entitled "in our bedroom after the war" but i feel that the title fits both works just as well.

It’s a sunny spring morning when things fall apart.

Max hadn’t slept very well the previous night. He muffled sobs into his pillow, tossing and turning, his fists pounding their bed; it had woken her up. She sat up and watched in agony as his pain came in waves, unsure of what to do—her gut instinct was to wake him, as he always woke her, but there was something about the harshness of his movements that startled her to stillness. She kept her hands on her lap, and reluctantly slept sitting up as she grew accustomed to the sounds of his nightmare. When he woke early the next morning, tired and horrified, and found her in that position, he assumed she had fallen to sleep with a book in her hands, and decided to keep the nightmare to himself: it would do more harm than good to tell her.

He’s making coffee with tired eyes when it happens. Max can’t tell if it’s slippery fingers or the heat of the mug that sends his coffee to the floor, the mug shattering and hot, dark brown liquid spilling onto his shins and his feet. Liesel throws her book onto the couch and runs into the kitchen upon hearing the cup break.

“Fuck!” Max’s voice is hoarse from the night before and Liesel is shocked at Max’s language. He rarely ever curses and the word slaps her.

“Max? Are you alright?” she asks as she assesses the damage.

“I’m fine, Liesel.” His eyes are red, the same color as his legs as he rolls up his pants.

“Look at your legs, you’re not fine! Let me help you.” She grabs a rag from the counter and begins to run it under the cold water in the sink until Max swats her hand away, forcing her to drop the soaked towel.

“Liesel, I said I was fine. Go back to your book, I can handle this myself.”

“No, you can’t.” As she bends to pick up the fallen pieces of the mug Max straightens and grips the edge of the counter, his muscles straining against the thin fabric of his shirt.

Even facing away from her, he can tell that she’s trying to clean up his mess. It’s too much for him to bear: the one time he has a simple request and she refuses to listen. Perhaps more harshly than he intends, he releases the counter to lean down and take her forearm, tightly; he yanks her up, and she loses her balance, falling against his side before he shoves her away. There are pieces of porcelain in her hands and she looks at him, surprised, before he exclaims, “I said I could handle this!”

She pulls herself away from his grip, offended. “I was just trying to help!” She scoffs as she turns to throw away the pieces she collected, dusting off her hands over the trashcan. “You should go back to sleep, it will make you feel better.”

He shakes his head. “If I go to sleep, I’ll see their faces again.” The words come out in what sounds like a growl. Max leans down to clean up the spilt coffee and Liesel folds her arms across her chest like she always does when she wants him to pay attention to her.

“Whose faces, Max?”

“Everyone’s!” he yells, the loudness and tone of his voice frightening her. But even as the explosion starts out strong, it stutters through the names, collapses in on itself. “Hans, Rosa, my mother, oh God, my mother,” he wails as his legs give out under the weight of the corpses, and he falls, slowly, to his knees before the counter.

“Max please, just let me….” Her voice is soft, helpless. She wants to fall to his side but forces herself to stay standing.

“No! Damn it Liesel, can’t you see? I don’t want any help?”

She simply stares at him, her eyes filling with hot tears. Her hands shake at her side

“But you were doing so well when you let me help you.” There had been a journal for his birthday, a place for him to write down the memories, write of his experience, a safe place to tell his story without any prying eyes. He had used it for a few weeks and it had lessened the nightmares just a little, until he had woken up screaming again and had thrown the book away, damning it for making him relive everything. The half-hearted visits to psychologists and psychiatrists (if he wouldn’t tell her his story, maybe he could tell a stranger), but that had not stopped the visions and had only been a drain on their income. Still, the exercises had taught him how to smile again, and he had borne the stress of living better in those months. But he hadn’t talked to anyone in weeks.

He holds his head in his hands, wanting her to leave the room only to spare her from the hurt that whatever he says might cause her. But it’s too late for that. Maybe it’s always been too late for that. She stays anyway, bracing herself for the words that will come like knives.

“I don’t want any help because I don’t need it!” His voice is muffled a little by his palms, but the harsh intent is completely clear

“What?”

“Can’t you see it, Liesel? I’m broken and nothing and no one will be able to fix that!”

Her heart is in her stomach and the tears that have started to roll down her face sting her cheeks. It’s as if someone punched her in the stomach, put her face right in front of a fire and left it there: No one. The words have cut her open and there’s nothing that she can do to stop her own words from spilling out.

“No one? Really, Max?! I’m no one?” She’s crying in earnest then, and her volume rises as she continues, her passion rising in her throat. “I have held you during your nightmares, listened to you crying at night, I have been here for you!”

She watches his fingers tighten in his hair. “I never asked you to do any of that!”

“You didn’t need to, Max. I would’ve done it anyway.” The sudden softness of her words is in rough contrast with the shakiness of her voice and the tears soaking her face.

“Liesel, you are wasting your time on me.” It is a solid statement delivered quietly, and it exists hideously between them: once said, it cannot be taken back.

“I love you!” She screams it and it makes her chest hurt. It is blunt in the air, clunky and crowded.

“I am a shell of a man.” Still quiet, and the absence it creates in the air makes her loud declaration more obscene by the moment. “I am broken. I’m not worth anything!”

Liesel is too stunned to reply for a good minute. And then she explodes.

“Fine, Max; deal with everything yourself, be alone! But don’t expect me to hold your hand when you get scared!” She regrets saying it as soon as the words leave her mouth. She’s sobbing as she runs down the short hall to their bedroom.

The only sounds in the apartment are crying and the slamming of the bedroom door and the kitchen door. Liesel can smell him on the sheets she cries into, and the coffee on the kitchen floor has dried. It takes both of them several minutes to move again, she from her sprawled out position on the bed and he from his painful crouch before the stained floor. When she stands again, she wipes at her face; he finally picks up the last pieces of the mug and wipes the coffee away.

When the morning ticks into the afternoon they find they can’t remember what the other screamed, but their own shouts are tattooed in their minds. As she slips back into pajamas, the sun still bright in the sky, she hears herself condemning him to solitude; as he cares for the burns across his shins he feels the violent way he had pulled her from the ground, and shame burns through him when he realizes how easily he could have hurt her. She tries to nap but her hands are always fidgeting to his cold side of the bed; he rests on the couch with his arms over his eyes, thinking that her suggestion of sleep might make him feel better, but he feels very empty without her body cupped against his chest.

They try to drowse and succeed just a little, so that the day turns into night without much agony. Every hour she tells herself not to go to him: he made it very clear that he does not want her, even if she can’t remember the phrases he used. Every time he wakes he knows he cannot go to her, even if he groveled before her feet: she had given him his ultimatum, even if he can’t remember the words. It’s too much to ask for the other to forgive them, because they cannot forgive themselves.

But, somehow—somehow the pain of separation outweighs any self-loathing, any guilt or feeling of unworthiness. Because she in her soft nightgown finally opens the door; because he in his stained pants finally rises from the couch. They do not deserve the other, but that does not stop them from needing the other.

They meet each other somewhere in the middle of the hallway, and are surprised by the other’s presence. She almost reaches out to touch him to prove that he truly is there, but decides to speak instead, with her heart in her throat. “I’m so sorry, Max.” Thick. “I’m here for you, of course I’m here for you.”

She looks like a shadow, standing before him—he reaches out and cups her jaw between his hands. “Liesel,” and it’s a soft sigh, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you, I shouldn’t have—I need you.” His fingers tighten around her. “I need you and I love you. I’m sorry.” He feels a tear fall against his thumb so he leans down to kiss her, tenderly. She takes his shirt in her hands and tightens them into fists; she twists at the fabric, keeping him at her mouth.

It’s the easiest thing in the world, to be led back into their bedroom.

They take their time undressing each other in the doorway. Her nightgown falls to the floor and pools softly around her ankles. With his mouth on her shoulder she manages to unbutton his shirt and slide it off. As his shirt joins her nightgown on the floor her arms meet his neck, and when his hands slip around her thighs her legs jump up to meet his waist until he’s carrying her to their bed. He doesn’t smile or laugh the way he usually does as he lays her down. He presses his lips to hers gently and his hands are shaking as he runs them down from her shoulder to her hips. He would be hesitant to touch her exposed skin but there’s something in the way she runs her fingers through his hair and looks at him with pure love in her eyes that leads him to believe she wants him as much as he wants her. It’s been so long since their last night together, that it’s easy for him to doubt her desire. But with that look he’s reminded, very quickly, of how much she not only loves him, but wants him.

 

Max’s lips have moved from Liesel’s mouth to the middle of her stomach when she grips his hair and pulls his head up, and with a small smile she rolls him off of her to begin her own exploration of his body. He sits up and she straddles him, her knees at his hips. With trembling hands she helps him take his undershirt off, her fingers paying extra attention to the scars that curve around his shoulders.

He’s never spoken about them, and she’s never been able to bring herself to ask, knowing that if she’s meant to know, he’ll tell her in his own time. As it is, she traces over the lines that cup delicately over his shoulder, around his arms; she touches her lips to the ones that cross around his throat, his jaw, from their meeting on Munich Street. Her palms delicately press against the lines across his back as her mouth moves down, down his arms to his chest. Slowly, her hands encourage him to lay back down the farther south her mouth travels. Her hips shift down his body as she kisses down between his ribs, until her fingers play with the buttons of his pants. She smiles as his breathing becomes shallow and uneven when she pulls the clothing down but not completely off.

Neither of them thinks about what the other said hours ago; instead Max thinks about how soft Liesel’s lips are as she plants tender kisses across his hips and she, in turn, thinks about how warm his skin is beneath her hands. He’s surprised when her mouth reaches its destination and the feeling guides him to run his fingers through her curls. She’s wanted to try this for some time and the satisfaction at his moans is rather prideful. It takes longer than she expected it would and worries, a little, at how terrible she must be at this. But then he trembles; then his eyes are tightly shut and his grip tightens and her mouth fills with him.

When he comes he sees stars.

Just as he had, the first time his mouth had explored her body, she rises with a little embarrassment and a lot of shyness. She sits up and crouches in on herself, watching him with wary eyes. He breathes deeply and sighs, and opens his eyes. He smiles a deliciously lazy smile and beckons to her with a few fingers; she lies down at his side, and he turns to face her, to put his hand around the small of her back and pull her close. His head buries into her neck.

“I love you.” It tickles across her collarbone. “I’m sorry about today.”

“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t ha—” He stops her, of course he does, by raising his lips to hers tiredly. She likes this kind of kissing, because it’s slow and patient, and takes her completely by surprise when his hand delicately suggests its way between her thighs. She gasps into his mouth at the first touch of his fingertips, and laughs at herself.

“You don’t have t—” She murmurs at first, not feeling an overwhelming desire or need to come tonight, but his fingers have already started to curl inside her and the rest is lost in the beginning of a moan that builds in her throat. She feels his grin against her jaw.

“You were saying?”

She’s too overcome with pleasure to form a coherent verbal response. Her knuckles turn white as she feverishly grips the sheets. When his lips meet hers again, she takes his bottom lip in her teeth and bites down gently. The sensation is enough to drive him mad.

He pulls his lips away from her mouth and turns his attention to the rest of her body. Soft kisses are planted all along her neck and down to her stomach. When he reaches her lower belly the kisses become slower and more drawn out. She lies on their bed with her knees bent and Max between her thighs and she wants him so terribly bad.

With Max’s mouth in such an intimate place, all memories of the previous morning are forgotten. All he can focus on is the way she says his name, slowly and softly, like it’s made up of only the best letters in the alphabet. She has no time to think about anything else besides how warm his breath is on her skin and how his cold hands make her shiver, but in a good way. As her gasps increase, her trembling intensifies, he murmurs it into her skin: “I’m sorry.” A shudder against his mouth. “I love you.” A moan, stronger.

She comes with her fingers tangled in his hair and her legs resting on his shoulders. Her back arches and her toes curl and she says Max’s name over and over again.

Exhausted, Max kisses his way back up Liesel’s body until their faces are inches apart. Her face is sweaty and glowing and Max thinks that she’s never looked more beautiful than she does right now. She curls up against him and lets her fingers trace lazy circles on his back. Their silence is comfortable but Max feels the need to say what’s been said many times before

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says, speaking more towards his heart than his face. She places a kiss over his heart and they fall asleep with his arm around her sides and their ankles intertwined.

Max’s demons will never disappear but with Liesel’s help, he can learn to manage them.

Separate corners and a shared bed.


End file.
